Barclays initiates SK Hynix ADR coverage with $330 target

Barclays ↘ 3.15% initiated coverage of SK Hynix's newly listed American Depositary Receipts on Tuesday with an Overweight rating and a price target of $330, implying upside of roughly 117% from Monday's closing price. The call marks one of the first major Wall Street initiations since the South Korean memory chipmaker began trading on the Nasdaq ↗ 0.42% under the ticker SKHY on July 10.finviz+1

A Bullish Case Built on AI Memory Demand

The price target reflects Barclays' conviction that tightening memory supply and accelerating demand from AI data centers will continue to drive earnings growth for SK Hynix, the world's leading producer of high-bandwidth memory chips. In late June, Barclays had already raised its target on SK Hynix's Seoul-listed shares, citing strong HBM demand and improving pricing trends, and projecting that memory bit growth would accelerate to more than 35% in 2027 from around 30% in 2026, driven almost entirely by data center and AI workloads.investing

The initiation comes less than a week after SK Hynix completed what Reuters called an approximately $26.5 billion ADR offering — the second-largest share sale in history after SpaceX's IPO — priced at $149 per ADR. The offering was more than seven times oversubscribed, with orders totaling about $171.5 billion, according to Bloomberg. Investors including Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management, and Situational Awareness Partners indicated interest in purchasing up to $7 billion worth of the ADRs.bloomberg+2

From Seoul to Wall Street

SK Hynix's U.S. listing gives American investors direct access to one of the key beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure buildout without needing Korean trading permissions. Each ADR represents one-tenth of a common share. The company earmarked proceeds entirely for manufacturing capacity expansion.graniteshares+1

The ADR debuted on a when-issued basis on July 10, with regular-way settlement trading beginning July 13. Since pricing at $149, the stock has experienced some early volatility. Barclays' $330 target now sets the highest publicly reported benchmark for the newly traded ADR, signaling the bank's view that SK Hynix remains undervalued relative to peers like Micron Technology ↘ 5.25% even after a roughly 680% gain in its Korean shares over the past year.investing+2